The Journal - Peter McLaughlinhttp://www.journalmpls.com/tag-topics/peter-mclaughlin
enCities home in on light rail cutshttp://www.journalmpls.com/news/sw-lrt-update/cities-home-in-on-light-rail-cuts
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<span class="field-slideshow-caption-text">Met Council Chair Adam Duininck said Southwest light rail cost savings must be balanced against ridership impacts.</span>
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<span class="field-slideshow-credit-text">Dylan Thomas</span>
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</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Dylan Thomas</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-teaser field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Committee members debate options for cutting $341 million from the project’s budget</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>The five cities along the proposed Southwest Light Rail Transit line began to home in Wednesday on the cuts it will take to reduce the project’s budget by roughly $341 million.</p>
<p>Local officials serving on the Corridor Management Committee are attempting to spread the pain, but it’s also becoming clear a shorter line is a cheaper line. Eden Prairie, at the western end of the 16-mile transit corridor, is likely to lose one or more stations as the current $2-billion estimated cost is pulled back to a target of about $1.65 million</p>
<p>Cutting the project short in Eden Prairie “certainly has to be a part of the equation as we go through this exercise,” Jim Alexander, director of design and engineering for SWLRT, told the committee as project staff presented several cost-cutting scenarios Wednesday. The committee is expected to present a list of recommended project changes to the Metropolitan Council for a vote in early July.</p>
<p>Met Council Chair Adam Duininck said the cuts couldn’t dramatically reduce SWLRT ridership, which was projected to reach 36,200 weekday boardings by 2040 if the full line were built. The goal is to keep weekday ridership levels at 29,000–30,000 boardings so that the project’s “medium-high” rating with the Federal Transit Administration doesn’t slip and endanger SWLRT’s shot at crucial federal funding, which is expected to cover 50 percent of project costs.</p>
<p>Under one scenario developed by project staff, SWLRT would run all the way to Southwest Station in Eden Prairie on Technology Drive west of Prairie Center Drive, the second-to-last stop on the western end. But to get the line that far west, engineers would have to eliminate all of the suburban park and rides, and Minneapolis and Eden Prairie would lose three stations apiece. Alexander said “ridership plummets” under that scenario, and SWLRT would probably lose eligibility for FTA funding.</p>
<p>Another scenario eliminated three of five Eden Prairie stations, ending the line at Golden Triangle Station, located on West 70th Street between Shady Oak Road and Flying Cloud Drive. That hit the budget target, but staff noted it unfairly located all the major cuts in Eden Prairie.</p>
<p>Although no votes were taken, members of the Corridor Management Committee seemed to generally agree a better option was to cut two of the 17 proposed stations, ending the line at Eden Prairie’s Town Center Station — either on Eden Road between Flying Cloud Drive and Prairie Center Drive or shifted about 1,500 feet east down Flying Cloud Drive. Eden Prairie Mayor Nancy Tyra-Lukens said Town Center Station serves the city’s “most transit-dependent population,” but she also made a case for keeping Southwest Station, an established transit hub near jobs and housing.</p>
<p>Even if committee members agree on making Town Center Station the line’s western terminus, they would still have to agree to a variety of cuts elsewhere in the project to reach the budget reduction goal. Those other cuts could include shrinking the fleet of light rail vehicles; eliminating or delaying construction of park and rides; slashing budgets for landscaping, art and bicycle and pedestrian access; or even dropping stations farther east.</p>
<p>Minnetonka Mayor Terry Schneider did just that, sharing a document Wednesday that builds off of the Met Council-developed proposal to end the line at Town Center Station. It mixes and matches other cost-saving measures — cutting some park and rides, reducing the budget for a Hopkins light rail vehicle operations and maintenance facility and deferring construction of Minneapolis’ 21st Street Station — to hit the $341-million target.</p>
<p>But any proposal to reduce stations in Minneapolis is likely to encounter stiff opposition from city leaders, who only grudgingly accepted the current SWLRT alignment after mediation with Met Council. Over Minneapolis’ objections, light rail will run alongside freight rail and a popular bicycle and pedestrian path through the narrow Kenilworth Corridor.</p>
<p>Peter Wagenius, an aide to Mayor Betsy Hodges who represents Minneapolis on the committee, expressed his surprise that the committee would even consider dropping Royalston or Penn stations, which were included as potential cuts in some the scenarios shared Wednesday. SWLRT’s potential to connect low-income urbanites to suburban jobs was a major selling point, and both of those stations were pitched as access points for the city’s North Side.</p>
<p>“If people want to drag this project backwards into the freight routing debate — I want to be clear that’s not what the city of Minneapolis is recommending — but if people want to drag the project back into the freight routing debate, that’s your choice,” Wagenius said. “But if you do, we’ll go there.”</p>
<p>Hennepin County commissioners Jan Callison and Peter McLaughlin said they didn’t hear anyone making that suggestion. McLaughlin said Royalston and Penn should come off the list of potential cuts, but reminded committee members there were tough choices ahead.</p>
<p>“I thought the idea of this spread sheet was a comprehensive list,” he said, referring to the list of cost-saving measures. “Put them all down. Stare at it. Deal with it.”</p>
<p>The committee will continue its discussion June 24 and plans to finalize its list by July 1. Under the current schedule, suggested cuts will be presented to the Met Council that same afternoon and come back for a vote July 8.</p>
</div></div></div>Thu, 04 Jun 2015 16:31:57 +0000Dylan Thomas24948 at http://www.journalmpls.comhttp://www.journalmpls.com/news/sw-lrt-update/cities-home-in-on-light-rail-cuts#commentsCommunity leaders endorse shallow tunnels for light railhttp://www.journalmpls.com/news/sw-lrt-update/community-leaders-endorse-shallow-tunnels-for-light-rail
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<span class="field-slideshow-caption-text">Shallow tunnels would carry light rail trains beneath the Kenilworth Corridor's biking and walking path.</span>
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</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Dylan Thomas</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-teaser field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Recommendation heads to Metropolitan Council for April 9 vote</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>A plan for Southwest Light Rail Transit that includes two shallow tunnels through Minneapolis’ Kenilworth Corridor won approval from a panel of local elected officials and agency representatives Wednesday.</p>
<p>The project’s Corridor Management Committee voted 11–2, with Mayor Betsy Hodges dissenting over what she termed a “fundamental failure of fairness” in the planning process. Hodges was joined by Anoka County Commissioner Matt Look, who primarily objected to the escalating cost of the metro area’s largest transit project, now projected at close to $1.7 billion.</p>
<p>The recommendation goes next to the Metropolitan Council, where a vote on the project’s overall scope and budget is set for April 9. If talk around the committee table is any indication, the Met Council may consider dropping the northernmost of two tunnels, cutting up to $60 million from the project.</p>
<p>Either way, the regional policy-making body is poised to endorse a plan Minneapolis city leaders have never accepted: co-location freight rail and light rail in the Kenilworth Corridor.</p>
<p>In 2009, Hodges, then a City Council member, voted with a majority of her colleagues to select the Kenilworth route on the understanding freight traffic would shift to tracks in St. Louis Park. But St. Louis Park never accepted that plan, and Twin Cities &amp; Western Railroad used the considerable leverage it is given under federal rules to all but kill a reroute.</p>
<p>Had they known the obstacles then, Hodges said, the City Council might have selected a route that sent light rail trains through more densely populated Uptown, instead. She blamed the Met Council for not building enough time into the planning process to take the reroute debate before the Surface Transportation Board, where it would likely be settled, and for giving TC&amp;W “veto power” over the plan.</p>
<p>“That’s a point that needs to be raised, that this reroute was never taken seriously,” she said.</p>
<p>Hodges said St. Louis Park won and Minneapolis lost on almost every point of contention in the Southwest light rail debate, a statement that Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin called “astounding.”</p>
<p>“To say that Minneapolis has lost on everything that they care about I think fails to keep an eye on what the real prize is here, which is regional transportation system that promotes economic prosperity and provides economic opportunity to the people of our region,” McLaughlin said.</p>
<p>Other committee members emphasized the benefits of a new transit line over the impacts on some who live near it. Minnetonka Mayor Terry Schneider said the development of a light rail network was a “game-changer” for the region.</p>
<p>“Conversely, if we don’t get it, if we stumble on our toes and just can’t get our act put together, it’s going to put us way behind every other region in the country that is growing and attracting talent and doing the right thing,” Schneider said.</p>
<p><strong>One tunnel, or two?</strong></p>
<p>The debate among committee members followed several hours of public testimony. The dozens of speakers included Andrew Hestness, vice president of the Native American Community Development Institute in Phillips, who urged planners to preserve the 21st Street Station in Kenwood because it offers the most direct access to the line — and the employment centers it will eventually serve — from Franklin Avenue bus routes.</p>
<p>That station is eliminated under the shallow-tunnel plan as proposed. The plan calls for two tunnels, one on either side of a waterway that connects Cedar Lake to Lake of the Isles. Trains would surface briefly in-between to cross the waterway on a bridge.</p>
<p>But the northern tunnel could be eliminated, preserving the 21st Street Station, which is planned for an area just north of the channel bridge, near East Cedar Lake Beach. Mark Furhmann of the Met Council’s project staff said the change would cut an estimated $55 million–$60 million from the total cost of the project.</p>
<p>During the meeting, Hodges was asked to offer an opinion on the northern tunnel. She deferred, stating that Minneapolis’ preference was to reroute freight rail and not to have shallow tunnels at all.</p>
<p>Edina Mayor Jim Hovland said a tunnel was necessary to get light rail trains through a narrow “pinch point” at the southern end of the Kenilworth Corridor, but not the wider corridor area of the channel. Hovland wondered if it wouldn’t be better to find other ways to mitigate the noise and visual impacts of the trains.</p>
<p>“I think it deserves a conversation, especially in light of the [Minneapolis] mayor’s comments that Minneapolis didn’t ask for or want the shallow tunnels,” Hovland said.</p>
<p>Asked if the savings, amounting to less than 4 percent of the total project costs, were worth it, Hovland responded: “I think it makes a difference if you care about spending people’s money.”</p>
<p>Several others on the committee seemed to agree, including McLaughlin, who said elimination of the northern tunnel was “up for consideration.”</p>
<p>“There’s a considerable amount of money to be saved,” he said.</p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 02 Apr 2014 21:10:01 +0000Dylan Thomas22672 at http://www.journalmpls.comhttp://www.journalmpls.com/news/sw-lrt-update/community-leaders-endorse-shallow-tunnels-for-light-rail#commentsCouncil committee rejects co-location of Southwest LRThttp://www.journalmpls.com/news/sw-lrt-update/council-committee-rejects-co-location-of-southwest-light-rail
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</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Dylan Thomas</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-teaser field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">A resolution makes clear Minneapolis won’t accept shallow tunnels</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>The Minneapolis City Council Committee of the Whole on Wednesday approved <a href="http://www.minneapolismn.gov/www/groups/public/@clerk/documents/webcontent/wcms1p-121478.pdf" target="_blank">a resolution</a> rejecting any plan to co-locate freight rail and a future Southwest Light Rail Transit line in the Kenilworth Corridor.</p>
<p>The resolution, authored by Ward 1 Council Member Kevin Reich and passed on a voice vote, reiterates the city’s longstanding position that freight rail must be rerouted out of Minneapolis to St. Louis Park before light rail arrives in 2018. It also makes clear that Minneapolis will not accept construction of two shallow tunnels to carry light rail beneath the Kenilworth Corridor’s existing freight rail line, an option proposed by Metropolitan Council planners.</p>
<p>Many in St. Louis Park remain staunchly opposed to accepting the reroute, and the deadlock is threatening the future of the $1.5-billion regional transit project. Twin Cities &amp; Western Railroad, too, has so far resisted plans to shift its Kenilworth Corridor freight traffic to the west.</p>
<p>A key Met Council vote on the final scope and budget of the project is scheduled for April 9. The Corridor Management Committee, made up of local governments and agencies involved in the project, will meet a week earlier to look over revised technical reports from two independent consultants and make a recommendation.</p>
<p>The latest estimates show the two options on the table would cost roughly the same: about $220 million–$240 million to reroute freight and $235 million–$250 million to dig the shallow tunnels.</p>
<p>Immediately following the Wednesday Committee of the Whole meeting, Met Council spokesperson Laura Baenen released a statement that read: “Any city council resolution from any city taking a position on Southwest LRT is premature prior to publication of the final independent technical report and a Southwest LRT Project staff recommendation on the project scope and budget.”</p>
<p>The Met Council, the lead agency on the project, was close to a vote on the shallow-tunnel plan last fall. But a meeting of local officials in Gov. Mark Dayton’s office led to a delay of several months, during which additional studies were conducted on freight rail rerouting and the potential impact of shallow-tunnel construction on the Chain of Lakes.</p>
<p>In January, one of the Met Council consultants, TranSystems, released a rerouting study that suggested many of the objections raised by St. Louis Park and Twin Cities &amp; Western could be overcome. While Minneapolis officials, including Mayor Betsey Hodges, seized on the solution, <a href="http://www.southwestjournal.com/news/news/railroad-rejects-latest-rerouting-proposal" target="_blank">it did little to soften the opposition</a>.</p>
<p>Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin — a key player in the light rail debate with positions on the project’s Corridor Management Committee and the Counties Transit Improvement Board, a major funding source — told City Council members Wednesday he was angry with St. Louis Park officials for not accepting the rerouting of freight. McLaughlin and others say the suburb essentially agreed to the reroute in the 1990s in exchange for millions in environmental cleanup funds from the county, although the agreement was not binding.</p>
<p>While he has pressured both cities to converge on a solution soon, McLaughlin cautioned Minneapolis City Council members that a freight-rail reroute was going to be tricky. He noted federal rules give the railroad considerable influence over the decision.</p>
<p>“It’s actually about a four-cushion billiards shot to get relocation,” he said.</p>
<p>If Minneapolis won’t accept a shallow-tunnel plan, and St. Louis Park won’t accept a reroute, it raises the possibility the project could be delayed or canceled entirely, essentially throwing away millions of dollars and hundreds of hours already invested in planning. But Minneapolis leaders worry that, even if they agree to a shallow tunnel, it may never be built due to its cost or unexpected engineering complications.</p>
<p>Ward 7 Council Member Lisa Goodman, the only member of a previous Council to vote against light rail in the Kenilworth Corridor, raised that concern again Wednesday. Rather than approve a flawed plan, Goodman suggested the region might move on to another major transit project.</p>
<p>“Let Bottineau go first, then,” Goodman said, referring to another regional light rail project in the early planning stages. “How does Minneapolis lose in that?”</p>
<p>McLaughlin responded: “The delicacy is this line could be killed, and that’s not in the long-term interest of Minneapolis.”</p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 05 Mar 2014 19:45:07 +0000Dylan Thomas22495 at http://www.journalmpls.comhttp://www.journalmpls.com/news/sw-lrt-update/council-committee-rejects-co-location-of-southwest-light-rail#commentsHennepin County drops request to increase burning at HERChttp://www.journalmpls.com/news-feed/hennepin-county-drops-request-to-increase-burning-at-herc
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</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Ben Johnson</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-teaser field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Proposed county resolution requires Minneapolis to implement citywide organics recycling program by year&#039;s end </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>After four years of squabbling with Minneapolis, Hennepin County is dropping its longstanding request to increase the amount of garbage it can burn at the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC).</p>
<p>Instead, the county board has proposed to withhold funds for Minneapolis’ recycling program unless it institutes an organic waste collection service for every residential building containing between one and eight units by Jan. 1, 2015.</p>
<p>At the <a href="http://hennepinmn.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=10&amp;clip_id=2094">Jan. 28 county board meeting</a> Commissioners Peter McLaughlin, Gail Dorfman, Mike Opat and Linda Higgins introduced a co-authored resolution outlining the abrupt change in the county’s recycling strategy.</p>
<p>“It took, frankly, a threat by this board to take away funding from the city of Minneapolis to get them to adopt single sort recycling, which now they all love and embrace and it’s been a grand success, and I think this is an attempt to provide some direction, as is our responsibility, on composting,” said McLaughlin.</p>
<p>The resolution also dictates that county staff must come up with a schedule for implementing an organics collection service for every other city in Hennepin County by April 30, 2014.</p>
<p>Minneapolis city staff seem to like Hennepin County’s plan in theory, but the city was blindsided by the Jan. 1 deadline, which has been deemed unrealistic for a variety of reasons.</p>
<p>“It’s ambitious to think that we can have everything in place by January 2015,” said Ward 2 City Council Member Cam Gordon, who chairs the council’s Health, Environment and Community Engagement Committee. “Overall I think the concepts are good, but I have some concern over the way it was done, that it may create more tension. It could’ve been done in a more graceful and inclusive manner.”</p>
<p>Kellie Kish, Minneapolis’ recycling coordinator, said she first heard about the county’s new organics collection requirement on Jan. 29, the day after the county’s resolution was introduced. When asked if the Jan. 1, 2015 deadline was reasonable, she replied “Not really,” and directed further questions to David Herberholz, director of solid waste and recycling for Minneapolis. Herberholz did not return a request for comment.</p>
<p>One of the major difficulties in rolling out the county-mandated organics collection program is that Minneapolis currently only provides garbage and recycling services to residential buildings that contain between one and four units, so the city would have to increase the number of buildings it picks up from, in addition to expanding its services.</p>
<p>The resolution was a late addition to the Hennepin County board meeting agenda; some of the county commissioners hadn’t seen it until they arrived for the meeting. After McLaughlin read and explained the resolution, Commissioner Jan Callison successfully motioned that the it be moved to the Public Works, Energy and Environment Committee before further action was taken.</p>
<p>It will be discussed in committee at the Feb. 4 county board meeting, and if the resolution passes committee it will stand for final approval at the Feb. 11 meeting.</p>
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<p><em>Hodges at a campaign press conference outside of HERC - photo by Sarah McKenzie</em></p>
<p><strong>Moving toward zero waste or importing more garbage?</strong></p>
<p>Higgins pointed out that many of Minneapolis’ new city council members – as well as new Mayor Hodges, who held a press conference in August outside of HERC touting her plan to move Minneapolis to zero waste – are strong supporters of a beefed-up recycling program.</p>
<p>“We think it’s a reasonable timeline. Pretty much all of the new council members openly campaigned on increasing recycling and organics collections, so this is probably fairly high on many of their to-do lists over there,” said Higgins.</p>
<p>Minneapolis has been slowly working toward developing a citywide organics collection program since a pilot program began in Linden Hills in September 2008. Most recently <a href="http://www.minneapolismn.gov/www/groups/public/@publicworks/documents/webcontent/wcms1p-117857.pdf">an organics collection study</a> commissioned by city council was presented to its Transportation and Public Works Committee last October.</p>
<p>Hennepin County has made no indication that it would be willing to reduce burning at HERC. The waste-to-energy facility generates $9 million in annual revenue for the county, and provides enough power for 25,000 homes and enough heat for 1,500 homes and Target Field.</p>
<p>Currently a little under 75 percent of the approximately 365,000 tons of garbage incinerated annually at HERC comes from Minneapolis and <a href="http://www.pca.state.mn.us/index.php/view-document.html?gid=20067">a recent study</a> by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency found that 31 percent of Minnesota’s garbage was comprised of organics.</p>
<p>"I think it’s great [Hennepin County] tabled its request to increase burning at the HERC, but the next step is beginning to reduce the amount of waste burned there,” said Ward 3 City Council Member Jacob Frey, whose district includes HERC.</p>
<p>Hennepin County pegs the annual cost of implementing and running an organics collection program for all of its municipalities at $7 million. To help pay for that cost, the county is asking the state government to cease its practice of diverting funds collected from the Solid Waste Management Tax to the state general fund.</p>
<p>Last year, according to Hennepin County, $21 million from the Solid Waste Management tax made its way into the state’s general fund, while Hennepin County received only $2.8 million for its recycling, waste reduction and organics collection programs.</p>
<p>“It’s been a travesty, frankly, that legislators and governors time and time again have diverted those funds from the purpose that they were for, which was to implement the solid waste goals of the state and give counties and local governments the resources they need,” said McLaughlin. “We’re saying put the money back where it belongs.”</p>
<p>Ben Johnson // 612-436-5088 // <a href="mailto:%20bjohnson@mnpubs.com">bjohnson@mnpubs.com</a> // <a href="https://twitter.com/johnsonbend">@johnsonbend</a></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-video field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p style=" margin: 12px auto 6px auto; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; display: block;"> <a title="View Hennepin County HERC/Organics/SCORE resolution on Scribd" href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/203672732/Hennepin-County-HERC-Organics-SCORE-resolution" style="text-decoration: underline;">Hennepin County HERC/Organics/SCORE resolution</a></p><iframe class="scribd_iframe_embed" src="//www.scribd.com/embeds/203672732/content?start_page=1&amp;view_mode=scroll&amp;show_recommendations=true" data-auto-height="false" data-aspect-ratio="undefined" scrolling="no" id="doc_35648" width="100%" height="600" frameborder="0"></iframe></div></div></div>Fri, 31 Jan 2014 16:10:35 +0000Ben Johnson22312 at http://www.journalmpls.comhttp://www.journalmpls.com/news-feed/hennepin-county-drops-request-to-increase-burning-at-herc#comments